We decided to ask personalities from the Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russia, other eastern and western countries the same set of questions. These interviews are intended to represent a modest contribution to the re-evaluation of the events that had an impact in the 20th century. Although 100 years have passed, many misconceptions about the profound causes of this major overturn and the way the „proletarian revolution” is treated by the political elite, the academia and the church hierarchy still remain in the public consciousness of ex-communist countries and of the entire world. We think it is vital to find appropriate answers to questions of this intricacy.

Levan Vasadze(Georgia)

1.What are the spiritual, intellectual and ideological origins of the October Revolution?

The Raskol under Patriarch Nikon, which was a result of Russian self-assured imperial psyche, which can be described as follows: «We are the 3rd Rome, the only bastion of Christianity. Therefore, when we argue inside of Russia about theology, no one can tell us what to do even in theology, no other Orthodox Christians can help us, we know everything ourselves.” As a result – RASKOL. As a result: the separation of people from the elites. The division became even deeper and culminated in the antichristian reforms of Peter the Great. From then on, it was only a matter of time when people would retaliate against the elites and it did not matter under what domestic or imported pretext would that retaliation happen.

2.Why did this coup d’état happen specifically in Russia and to what extent is it an „imported project”?
As a result of the above fundamental division, the masonry led Marxist ideology found a fertile ground in the hearts and minds of Russian people, who by accepting the poison of Marxism from the West, essentially (subconsciously) told their own elites: “you want Western Europe, we will give you Western Europe in its original version, bypassing your hegemony over us, we will cancel you and directly rise to meet the western narrative, without you as our intermediaries and masters. So, the compromises of the elites in spiritual purity, which were consequences of RASKOL (which, again, in turn, was the result of imperial closed-mindedness), have led to the people’s retaliation against those elites. “The enemy of my class enemy is my friend” became more important as a message than ”the enemy of my country is my enemy”.

3. The soviet regime produced a specific ideology, which is also named the religion of the soviet civilization. What are the causes and characteristics of sovietolatry?

The ‘sweater’ of Marxism-communism was knitted by western European (mostly Jewish) ideologists. When forced onto the Slavic national body, it eventually, after many victims and sacrifice, became more humane than initially intended by its cosmopolitan tailors. This humanizing of the communist ‘sweater’ by eastern Slavs, Caucasians and Eurasians took approximately 30 terrible years (1917-1947). First, the humanization war needed to defeat the body suffocating thorns of the ‘sweater’ (Trotskyism) and then the steel-fire shower of fascism, which Josef Stalin, far from the saint himself, nonetheless did. By the mid 40-ies the communist ‘sweater’ was as humanized and moralized as possible (even though the body itself has suffered under it tremendously) within the limited possibilities of humanization of Marxism. Therefore, in brief, an ugly, ugly sweater, made look as pretty as possible, when forcefully put on the Slavic body. However, by definition, it needed to be ripped apart and thrown away from the body, because, no matter how prettified by the Slavs and their co-citizen nations, it was initially knitted as a death-robe.

4. How could you explain the fact that the communist virus still persists in Russia and in the former socialist countries, even after more than a quarter of a century?

I do not think the remains of thecommunist virus even compare in their harmfulness to thenew, also western imported virus of liberalism, which thistime, instead of the form of a sweater, like with communism,was injected into the veins of the Slavic body and is nowcirculating more and more intensively inside the organism,with each new injection. It also comes through thenostrils and respiratory system (from the air) and there isno visible salvation from it yet. The organism isbeing made more and more tolerant to this poison, every year and soon the organism may not even know that it is poisoned and that instead of blood it has the virus of liberalismflowing through its veins.

As for the leftovers of communism virus (churches as museums, false-populist collectivism instead of the true SOBORNOST, social passiveness of decent people versus the social activeness of indecent people, ineffective economic vectors of state-ownership of enterprises, etc.), like I said, these are ugly, but much less deadly features for modern Russia.

5. Critics of the soviet experiment often operate with the Western democratic system of reference when addressing the political and economic effects of that period. Why are the religious, spiritual and metaphysical aspects neglected most of the time.

I disagree that USSR was good, because it postponed liberalism by 70 years. If USSR was good in anything, this was despite Marxism and thanks to Christian inertia among Slavs and Georgians, and in general thanks to Traditionalist inertia of their co-citizens. If we all had our orthodox kingdoms and traditional societies untouched by Marxism, we would resist liberalism much more effectively and would today be much more prepared. Therefore, whatever good aspects existed under Communist regime, they were good not thanks to Marxism, but despite Marxism and thanks to Christian and Traditionalist legacy (including Islamic, Judaist, Buddhist and other traditions in our respective societies.)

6. Nowadays, liberalism and communism are considered to represent two completely different ideologies. However, when taking a closer look we can identify a series of striking coincidences and How would you describe the differences and similarities between these political theories?

To me they are all (together with fascism) the bastards of the same devil and the whore of Babylon (matriarchal urbanism.) And like all bastards, they do not know their true parents, and like the true sons of the demon, they all fight each other. Sons of God do not fight each other. Similarities among all three (not just two) of them are obvious: hatred towards Christianity and hence, as a result, towards the human being, desire of the world hegemony and the promise of paradise on earth. The differences are also obvious: three different carriers of three ideologies – individual, class and race as subjects in the respective theories.

7. Some researchers claim that the communist project found a logical continuation in the globalist project. To what extent to you find this opinion valid?

I believe I have already answered this: all three, including the communism, are the horsemen of Apocalypse; we are waiting for the fourth one and praying that we do not become one ourselves.

8. In the ex-communist world and in the West, russophobia is fed by the artificially maintained confusion between the Soviet Union and Russia (up to 1917 or after 1991), the crimes of the former communist regime being attributed to the Russian nation. It’s the same as if Nazism would be attributed to the German nation, something that should cause germanophobia. Whom does the maintenance of this confusion benefit and how could it be overcome?

Russia should stop destroying wherever it can the territorial integrity of ex-soviet republics and should start rebuilding them. This way it would stop being viewed as the state enemy by those republics and the US will no longer be their only ”savior and protector”. Only this way can Russia disarm the Americans from their ”positive” role in the former Soviet area.

For example, in case of Georgia,Russians should stop supporting kartvelo-phobic, genocide guilty, and fascist separatism (which has killed over 10,000 Georgians, raped and exiled over 500,000 Georgians from their homes) in Abkhazia and in Samachablo, and there will be no russophobia left in Georgia, which is amazingly smallto begin with, even today, despite the unheard of case of 22% territorial annexation, church and border violation and every 8th citizen made refugee. Now there is only one solution: Russia should announce the return of Georgian refugees to their homes under its guarantee and when the refugees return home, Georgia, in return should denounce its NATO aspirations. If this is not done, then our generation will grow old and die, and part of the younger Georgians, who may in the future care less about Abkhazia and Samachablo, because they have never seen it, may vote for NATO without these territories, just like the young Serbs are increasingly choosing EU without Kosovo. And hence, oddly, in this case Russia will receive the opposite result to what it wants, and the Americans will receive the result they want.

The same strategy can be extrapolated, with some adaptations, onto the other FSU republics. If Russia is viewed as an integrator, and not as a disintegrator of those republics, it will kill russophobia
and restore its power, both soft and hard. If Russia continues disintegrating those republics, it copies the American dual standards, loses the moral ground and becomes hostage to who has more dollars and arms. And worst of all, by promoting the creation of many mini states around its borders (only seemingly and temporarily loyal to Russia), Russia prepares the ground for its own disintegration. Hence, Russia should go against its emotional instincts and follow the laws of geopolitics.

9. Another frequent confusion in Russia and in the former communist space is the simultaneous
attachment of a part of the population both to the Church and to the soviet civilization, which is by definition anti-Christian. What should be done to overcome this at least incoherent approach? Could the church hierarchy itself contribute substantially to the surmount of these deviations?

The imperial (in this case Russian) model is the symphony of the State and the Church. The
equilibrium is very hard to achieve and always collapses eventually. The Kartvelian model is the opposite: Church and Identity despite the State, ideally thanks to the King, in those cases when he is a good Christian. But even then, the bureaucrats under the King are always bad. It is in exact line with biblical wisdom: the earthly power belongs to the demon. Both of these models are much easier to be perfected under the restored monarchies both in the 3rd Rome and in the 2nd Jerusalem. Both need each other and they both cannot be achieved without each other. After the restoration of both monarchies, they will complement and protect each other, both physically and spiritually. Until then, the bonding of the Church with the State (especially in the Empire) will drive away many liberalism-infected citizens from the Church.

10. How could it be explained that at the distance of more than a quarter of a century after the fall of communism and the USSR, Lenin’s mausoleum is intact and his mortal remains are not buried? The explanations which relate to the sparing of the sensitiveness of a portion of the elderly who harbor nostalgia or the ones about political opportunity do not withstand criticism. What are the spiritual causes that determine this volitional paralysis and what should the Russian elite, the Church, the peak intellectuals, the government administration do in order to get out of the net of this historical curse?

Patriarch Ilia II-nd gave the best answer to this once. He said: ”The earth is still refusing Lenin for what he did to the planet by poisoning it. It is the worst punishment for a soul.” Therefore, the burial of Lenin is not to be viewed as a physical, but as a metaphysical act. It is not the decision of the rulers or even of the people when Lenin is buried. It will become possible when the Forgiving Father considers the glass full.

11. In recent years, more and more people see Russia as the bastion of traditional values of the world. Could the anti-liberal stream of thought in Russia advance to the measure of a Conservative Revolution with global impact and what do you think are the chances of a far-reaching religious resurrection that could remove the dominant liberal paradigm from the stage of history?

As a paradox, in countries like Georgia, it is actually the Russian traditionalism, which makes the work of Georgian traditionalists more difficult: because of the identical Christian values, we are accused of

being Kremlin spies, which is the deadliest of all the sins one can be accused of in Abkhazia and Samachablo-amputated Georgia. This, unfortunately, makes us much less persuasive, especially among the young, who are told: ”Look, the likes of Vasadze are propagating what Putin is propagating, and hence they are on the side of those who killed, raped and exiled our nation”.

In general, the rise of traditionalism in our region can only advance if we move beyond the resistance to liberalism and propose the alternative ideology. For this, we need to advance the Affirmative Narrative of Tradition and put forward the project of a new socio-economic paradigm. I happen to believe that Russia, with its great physical resources, has less chance to be left alone by the occupants, who are always interested in those resources. Therefore, I believe Russia should reconcile with and shield Saqartvelo, as the greenhouse for growing of the Narrative. So, the only algorithm (although currently unrealistic and utopian) as I see it is the following: Russia helps reunite Georgia, protects and supports it. Georgia adopts world’s first post-liberal constitution, with the FAMILY as its main
subject, and bans liberalism, Marxism and fascism all together. This can be called the Caucasian
Model. This model is then implemented across the Caucasus and when perfected, is ready to be planted across the vast spaces of Eurasia.